MARK COLVIN: But first an exclusive insight into one of this year’s biggest stories – the Fukushima meltdowns.

Kenichi Matsumoto is the ultimate insider.

As special advisor to Japan’s prime minister and cabinet he witnessed both the government’s and the plant operator’s responses to the worst nuclear accident in a quarter of a century.

And when it comes to the meltdowns, Professor Matsumoto paints a picture of cover-ups, incompetence and communication breakdown.

He confirms that the operator of Fukushima – TEPCO – wanted to abandon the stricken plant and that the prime minister at the time – Naoto Kan – contemplated evacuating tens of millions of people from in and around Tokyo.

Professor Matsumoto also accuses the Japanese leadership of knowing months ago that areas around the nuclear plant would not be habitable for decades.

North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports from Tokyo.

MARK WILLACY: He’s been described as the prime minister’s ‘brains trust’ but Kenichi Matsumoto isn’t a nuclear physicist or a scientific genius. The history professor and author was a special advisor to the Japanese cabinet when a tsunami slammed into the Fukushima nuclear plant.

So he would become a witness to history and he’s given the ABC an ultimate insider’s account of what happened in the hours and days after March 11, as three of the Fukushima reactors bubbled towards meltdown. And he’s damning of the plant’s operator – TEPCO.

KENICHI MATSUMOTO (translated): First TEPCO did not convey accurate information about the accident to the Prime Minister. It tried to make the disaster look small. Then TEPCO’s headquarters wanted to evacuate the nuclear plant, but the chief of the facility vowed not to leave. So prime minister Kan was outraged because he wasn’t getting proper information or the truth.

MARK WILLACY: This lack of clear and accurate information was feeding panic, both in communities around the Fukushima plant, and around the cabinet table in Tokyo.

In the end TEPCO was ordered to keep its people at the plant and to start feeding the government more information.

Special advisor Kenichi Matsumoto reveals that the prime minster at the time, Naoto Kan, was considering evacuating 30 million people, after being briefed on a worst-case scenario.

KENICHI MATSUMOTO (translated): It’s true that the Prime Minister said we might have to evacuate people from Tokyo. There was no clue about the amount of radiation coming from the Fukushima plant, or if it was spreading over 100 or 200 kilometres. If that was the case, Tokyo would be in danger. And Prime Minister Kan actually said that eastern Japan might not be able to keep functioning; that it might collapse.

MARK WILLACY: In the end, talk of tens of millions being evacuated was dismissed, with fears it could cause mass panic and chaos, worse than the nuclear crisis itself.

But at the time what was collapsing, or more accurately, melting, were the fuel rods in reactors 1, 2, and 3, after they were fully or partially exposed. In less than 24 hours, the number 1 reactor core had melted and burnt a hole through the pressure vessel. It wasn’t until three months later that the Japanese government confirmed that the outer containment vessel had also been breached.

But special advisor to the cabinet, Kenichi Matsumoto isn’t just critical of TEPCO’s handling of the nuclear crisis, he’s also scathing of the then prime minister and his former boss Naoto Kan.

KENICHI MATSUMOTO (translated): I don’t think he handled it well. Because it was such a terrible accident, information should have been shared with the whole cabinet. But it wasn’t. The information stopped with Mr Kan who handled it alone. So the cabinet was isolated and wasn’t able to formulate its advice properly.

MARK WILLACY: Mr Kan has since resigned and Kenichi Matsumoto has also left his post as special advisor to the cabinet. What remains are 80,000 people displaced by the nuclear disaster. They’re now in their seventh month living in shelters or temporary housing and many are desperate to know if they can ever return to their homes.

Kenichi Matsumoto says the government has known for months that thousands will not be able to return.

KENICHI MATSUMOTO (translated): The cabinet knew right after the disaster that some people would not be able to live in their communities for 10 to 20 years, especially those a few kilometres from the plant. The government should have conveyed the truth to the evacuees. But it felt scared; it feared telling the truth to the people.

MARK WILLACY: Kenichi Matsumoto has now left politics for the more sedate world of academia, returning to his history post at a university outside of Tokyo.

But he’s still determined to write the history of the Fukushima nuclear crisis from his unique perspective from the inside.

This is Mark Willacy in Tokyo for PM.

MARK COLVIN: We approached the former prime minister Naoto Kan for a response but received no reply. A spokesman for TEPCO told us the company never tried to downplay information about the nuclear disaster, but acknowledged that there were mistakes made and some confusion at the start of the crisis.

… these are not “dosimeters” but “glass badges” that passively collect radiation information. It won’t help these children or their parents to avoid high-radiation areas and spots, it won’t tell them how much radiation they will have been exposed unless they are sent in to a company to interpret the data.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”

One Response to “Japanese PM Considered EVACUATION of Tokyo (ABC News)”

I’m kind of confused here. The reactors are at cold shutdown, and there have been no deaths and injuries related to radiation at all in Japan (I live there), and no suggestion given levels seen that we should expect any cancer increases. What, exactly, is all this concern about? You get more radiation from a single X-ray than any of this stuff can cause you. Yet nobody is advising we all avoid X-rays…